


That thing that happened that one time

by maple_clef



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Comment Fic, Drunken Shenanigans, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 23:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3307691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maple_clef/pseuds/maple_clef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soon after he moved into the Folly, Peter discovered two rather <i>confusing</i> paintings in the coach house. This is the story of how they came to be. But shhhh... don't tell anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That thing that happened that one time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sixthlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/gifts), [singoallala](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=singoallala).



> This is a spur-of-the-moment ficlet written in response to some tumblr meta discussion on the pictures - whether the subjects were actually Nightingale and Molly, the significance of the different eye colour for "Nightingale-senior", who'd painted them, when, and in what circumstances. This is _clearly_ what happened...
> 
> P.S. I love that there's a tag for 'drunken shenanigans'. And now there's also one for Harold Postmartin (who I think deserves more fic action).

After several decades in each other’s company, Thomas and Molly were… bored. They’d played all the Folly’s board games and were fed up of hide and seek (Molly had an uncanny knack both for hiding in odd places, and for sneaking up on Thomas when he was looking to see if the coast was clear, so it wasn’t much of a match). Conversation was right out.

It went in cycles; most of the 50s were pretty gloomy, what with Thomas recovering from Ettersberg and then the loss of the last seniors to ill health and infirmity. And from Molly’s point of view, rationing was a terrible inconvenience.

Towards the end of the decade, the mood of the world outside the Folly was recovering. The youngsters who delivered the groceries would turn up with a skip in their step, singing strange new American music and, as rationing had finally ended Molly was glad to be able to resume her full repertoire of cooking. But Thomas was still sad and withdrawn - which was what had prompted Molly to dig out some of the games in the first place.

This had been a perfectly amicable way to pass the time - and since there seemed to be an abundance of time these days, they had developed a tradition of what Thomas thought of as Molly’s Morale Mondays. Despite his initial reluctance he’d found he quite enjoyed the occasional concession to frivolity. Why not? He was out of practice, but it seemed to cheer Molly up and it broke the monotony of his policing duties, which he found he had little heart for now.

During the 60s, they’d even bought some new games - Molly was particularly partial to Yahtzee. Sometimes the wireless would go on, too, and they’d listen to _The Frost Report_ or _I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again_ \- not quite as enjoyable as Thomas’ late lamented favourite, _The Goon Show_ , but perfectly adequate.

Until the late 60s, they’d stuck to sedentary games in deference to Thomas’ age, but now for some reason the arthritis didn’t seem as bad, the old war wounds ached less every day, and Thomas felt like moving around more; exploring some of the upper floors and forgotten - to him - parts of the building. That was when they’d started hide and seek. It was a childish game, but had the benefit of getting Thomas up and about, whilst not requiring complex communication - and besides, Molly could make a note of those parts of the Folly in need of some attention from her duster.

But over the next few years, their mutual interest waned and the Morale nights became less frequent. They’d run out of hiding places. And there’s only so many times you can play the same games with the same person before you’re just going through the motions.

It was 1973 when Thomas finally came to the realisation that he was getting younger. When you see the same face in the mirror every day, you don’t always notice the small changes, but that Monday morning he looked properly at his reflection for the first time in a long while. And it was definitely a little less craggy than it had been. The liver spots on his cheek was gone, too. And, of course, he was moving with considerably less effort these days. Most peculiar.

Thomas wasn’t sure what to do with this information. What was causing it? How much younger would he get? Should he tell someone? In the end, he invited Harold over for tea, and explained his theory. Harold hadn’t known what to do either, but he’d said that they should probably celebrate, so they’d gotten really, really drunk. That probably explained what happened next.

Molly, who was apparently sober but in a playful mood, had co-opted Harold into persuading Thomas to resurrect Monday Morale night as a one-off special. So they’d indulged in a weird drunken game of hide and seek, in which Harold had accidentally got trapped in a wardrobe in one of the spare rooms. After far too much faffing around (turns out, it’s hard to create the _forma_ to pop a lock with magic if you’re laughing too much) they released Harold, and when everyone had calmed down they noticed that the wardrobe was full of clothes from the turn of the century.

Thomas decided that he was going to try some of them on, given that he always remembered his Uncle Stanley wearing clobber like this, when he was a lad, and now he was about the age Stanley was when Thomas had started at Casterbrook and wouldn’t it be _funny_ because he looked ever so much like him…

Well, that was odd. They looked a _lot_ alike, actually. At this point, Harold decided it would be a top idea to capture Thomas in the prime of his… age? Before he started getting younger again. So he’d have something to remember being old by. It seemed like a great idea at the time. It was a pity there wasn’t a camera to hand, though.

More alcohol had been produced. They’d all found themselves in the art studio in the old coach house, rooting out some surprisingly serviceable painting supplies and some canvases. Harold, despite being as drunk as Thomas and Molly had ever seen him, had a remarkably steady hand and the painting of Thomas turned out a reasonable likeness - even if (and perhaps the alcohol could be blamed, here) he’d got Thomas’ eye colour a bit wrong.

Then things had gotten _really_ hazy, but somehow another painting had happened. And Molly, who seemed totally untroubled by the raging hangovers plaguing Thomas and Harold, spent most of the next day with a worrying sort of grin on her face.

Perhaps, Thomas reflected, what happened at that Molly’s Morale Monday should stay there. Although he hadn’t had the heart to throw away the evidence, in the end. Harold _had_ done rather a good job, after all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [That thing that happened that one time [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4228326) by [KD reads (KDHeart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDHeart/pseuds/KD%20reads)




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